traditional rhyme which details what a bride should wear at her wedding for good luck

I have a copy of Millar's Notice of Appeal but I'm not going to do a detailed review of it. Millar has carried his hallmark "everything but the kitchen sink" style from the courtroom to his Notice of Appeal with relentless repetition. Even the clerk at the British Columbia Court of Appeal registry who printed the notice out for me commented on the huge number of Grounds For Appeal of Conviction that Millar had listed. I've had enough of relating Millar's gibberish over and over so I'll instead just try and analyze the basic themes. That hopeful bridal poem gives me a handy reference guide to break it down into topics. If you are so inclined you can read the document here;

Millar has included every last argument he made in court and is trying, yet again, to re-litigate them all. Every one of them. No argument, no matter how many times he lost it at trial or in prior hearings, has been discarded. The bulk of the notice is just padding due to his obsessive repetition, a style he used in court at a cost to me in time wasted while he incessantly rambled on about capitalization and all of his other beloved arguments. They are all back here for an encore. As examples of repetition

- Grounds 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 18, 19, and 21 all relate to how the nasty mean judge abused and mistreated him, ignored his legal brilliance, had him detained and cuffed and inflicted various other indignities to the point that it shocked the public conscience! Also the judge failed in her duties by refusing to act as his defense counsel and, in that role, finding him not guilty. Ground number 18 is going to particularly impress the Court of Appeal, but not favorably, because it's an outright lie;

18. During a chambers hearing called because of the above notice being filed the day before, immediately prior to jury selection, the judge ordered me to be taken into custody by the sheriff without warning or proper explanation as to why, creating an atmosphere lacking in impartial, reasoned adjudicator who would seek to de-escalate and maintain the decorum of the court process, completely inconsistent with the public's expectation of how a judge should treat an accused, unrepresented party and was shocking to the conscience.

I was there and saw the entire event. Millar started ranting at the judge and she told him to stop. He didn't, in fact he ranted even louder. She told him if he didn't stop she'd have the sheriff put him in custody. He ranted on and he was cuffed. I wrote about it here;

So the judge warned him, ordered him to stop, and told him the consequences if he didn't. He was handcuffed because he chose not to obey the judge's clear instructions. Apparently, in Millar's world, he can disrupt proceedings whenever he wants with intemperate rants and, if the judge responds by trying to keep order in her court, he has grounds for an appeal. He takes the position that he could act as badly as he wanted and the judge had the responsibility to gently "de-escalate" a situation he created through of his own offensive aggressive behaviour. But his comments in ground 18 opens up questions. Firstly what members of the public had their expectations violated? I was the only member of the public at the hearing and I thought the judge's actions completely appropriate. And who's conscience was shocked? I've not noticed any groundswell of public indignation at the reprehensible treatment inflicted on Millar. In fact the "public" seems unaware of his existence.

Perhaps Millar thinks he can give the Court of Appeal one of his indignant hours-long speeches about this abuse and the court will sympathize at the injustice of it all. Except that they will have the transcript, will read what actually happened, and have it confirmed that anything Millar says can't be trusted unless backed by the record.

Something New

Appellants are not allowed to introduce new arguments on appeal. The trial is over and the purpose of the Court of Appeal is to review the judge's decision, not give the appellant another shot at things he could have argued at trial but didn't. But when have rules of court had any meaning for Michael? So he's trotted out a few new ones he didn't get around to trying at trial. First is the Stewart case which is discussed below. Millar did not bring up Stewart at trial, at least that I can recall, but now he's seen the light and become a convert. Millar does not mention Stewart by name or citation in his reasons but he's clearly referring to it in comments like these;

26. The judge did not use the test for source of income prescribed by the Supreme Court of Canada, which is a miscarriage-legal error, or she did not know, therefore not a fair hearing legal error by not applying the legal tests, Not considering a reasonable interpretation, which ignores the individual accused state of mind.

27. From reading the judge's decision it is apparent that she did not use the source of income test prescribed by the Supreme Court of Canada and this constitutes a serious error of law of one of the essential elements of the charge.

Note to Michael - If you claim that the Supreme Court has prescribed a source of income test you'll have to cite the case and show them an actual prescribed test. Just a vague comment that there is one and the judge ignored it won't cut it with the Court of Appeal. They will want the facts supporting your accusations.

Another new argument is not explained and I don't know what he's getting at. In Ground 13 (also mentioned in passing in 9) he claimed that the court and Crown presumed that he was an Agent of Her majesty, acting under franchise or license for all activities at all times. It might relate to his not remitting GST tax in respect to his business activities (although "business" is a fraught word within the Grounds of Appeal). It appears that by assuming that he was acting under franchise the court denied all of the private person rights he would have otherwise had and constantly demanded. No doubt he'll flesh it out with a few hours of explanation at his hearing.

Something Borrowed

Stewart (Stewart v. Canada, [2002] 2 SCR 645, 2002 SCC 46 (CanLII), http://canlii.ca/t/51sg) was a Supreme Court of Canada decision in respect to expense deductions. Essentially, if you are losing money on a business venture can you deduct these expenses against other income? Stewart said yes. Keith Lawson tried to turn this decision on it's head and use it as proof that it was really about the taxability of income. It was his argument that Stewart allowed him to choose whether his income from Paradigm was taxable or not. The Supreme Court of Canada, through Stewart, allowed him to claim that his income was from a hobby and, if he said that magic incantation "this is a hobby", any money he made from any source became tax free. Lawson said that once he'd made that determination nobody, the CRA, the government, the courts, could argue or dispute it. Apparently, apart from Lawson, nobody in Canada, all the tax lawyers, accountants, judges, understood that this was the true meaning of Stewart. Needless to say it didn't work for Keith. I reviewed Keith's obsession with Stewart here;

Apparently Millar's confidence in his own legal interpretations is shaken, at least to some extent, and he appears to have thrown Stewart in as insurance. Millar did not make any Stewart arguments at trial, at least while I was watching, but he's suddenly seen the light and become a convert on appeal. If Lawson wins on it in his appeal (0% probability) Millar wants to be on the bandwagon too.

He's also appropriated Lawson's argument that if a defendant comes up with a more lenient interpretation of the law than the court or Crown's interpretation then, for some reason, the court is required to accept the defendant's interpretation. Lawson said in his Notice of Appeal;

14. Where a statute is reasonably capable of two interpretations, the most favourable to the liberty of the Appellant was to be utilized. In a complex statute such as the Income Tax Act, where the legal onus is on the Appellant to voluntarily comply with the terms and provisions therein, errors of interpretation and/or application of the Act by the Appellant cannot form a basis for criminal or penal liability. These are not strict nor absolute liability offenses. The Honourable Trial Judge failed to so exercise her discretion accordingly

Millar has come up with esentially the same argument;

30. The judge has failed to consider and apply three fundamental legal principles; to read the act as a whole, consider possible alternative interpretations, and apply the more lenient interpretation.

So in their dream world all they have to do is tell the judge that her interpretation of the law is wrong, that they have a different interpretation, and they get to walk. Doesn't matter if the judge is actually wrong or if they are right, they just have to say that they thought their interpretation was right. Hell of a loophole!

Something Blue

That would be me, caught in my own personal Groundhog Day nightmare of having to review this garbage over and over and over . . .

And a Sixpence in Her Shoe

This is the one line that doesn't easily fit within the narrative. More of a personal note on Millar's current circumstances. The judge waived the victim surcharge fine because Millar is, as the court noted, impecunious and unable to pay even a small fine. So no doubt even finding some small change in the couch cushion or in a shoe in the closet would no doubt be a welcome augmentation of his income.

In addition to the above a few odds and ends that don't fit the themes.

In Ground 33 Millar complained that the Crown broke the law in asking for a DNA sample. Clearly a reason to throw everything out! I was in court when the request was made and, while the judge refused the request, she certainly found nothing odd or illegal about it. I guess she has no ability to interpret the law either, a point Millar has been making all through the Notice of Appeal. He has the same complaint about having his Paradigm material seized and forfeited. Since it is the private property of a private person the Crown had no right to take it under the warrant in the first place and certainly no right to keep it.

I'll leave you readers to interpret Ground 35. Just gibberish to me.

The Court of Appeals doesn't know what it's facing. Most appellants want to get it done with but it's my guess that Millar would be happy to argue, demand, rage and admonish the court for decades if the court allows it. It won't. The Court of Appeal doesn't have to contend with the weighty issues of guilt or innocence, just legal correctness, a much easier task. Although Millar will do his best to re-argue his entire case from scratch the appeals court will soon have him on a tight leash. I believe they actually allocate the amount of time an appellant has to present his case and, unlike the Supreme Court of British Columbia they mean it. What's he going to do if he's unhappy about that? Appeal? Supreme Court of Canada here we come!

And there's big trouble brewing for Michael. It's right there in the document. Something that I'm sure a legal expert like Michael has noticed but has chosen not commented on directly in his Grounds of Appeal. The British Columbia Court of Appeal is, like the Supreme Court of British Columbia, an illegitimate court not sanctioned by legislation!

Ground 24 of Millar's notice stated;

. . . . it was admitted by the prosecutor they intended to prosecute the case in the "Supreme Court of British Columbia pursuant to the Supreme Court Act section 2(1)" and in the "Vancouver Westminster Judicial District and County of Vancouver" section 8(d.1) which it appears the trial and decision ultimately did not take place within . . .

Section 2(1) of the Supreme Court Act states;

2(1) The Supreme Court of British Columbia is continued under the name and style of the "Supreme Court of British Columbia".

And 8(d.1) says;

(d.1) the County of Vancouver and the County of Westminster are collectively a judicial district under the name of the "Vancouver Westminster Judicial District"

Yet, notwithstanding these clear definitions, the name of the Supreme Court of British Columbia was styled on various documents used in his prosecution as THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA rather than the legitimate name as prescribed by 2(1). Same for the judicial districts. This is the entire basis of his jurisdiction defense. If a court doesn't style itself exactly as styled in its enabling Act it isn't a legitimate court and has no jurisdiction.

Note the use of upper and lower case. And indeed the Court of Appeal Act styles the court's name throughout as the Court of Appeal. However, in the standardized Notice of Appeal form that Millar was forced to use to file his appeal, the court is referred to as the COURT OF APPEAL. A smoking gun! Exactly the same issue that Millar is appealing in Ground 24! So, if the Supreme Court of British Columbia can brazenly ignore the clear wording of the statute that created and regulates it how can Michael expect anything different from the Court of Appeal? If the Court of Appeal agrees with him about capitalization then it means that it is also an illegitimate court and therefore has no jurisdiction over the Supreme court of British Columbia so it can't give him any relief from that court's decision. But if it doesn't agree with him it's going to support the status quo and agree that the Supreme Court of British Columbia is a legitimate court notwithstanding that it refers to itself in all capital letters. A perfect Catch 22. He's screwed.

And a tragic personal story that came to mind from my found money comment. During our 2015 trip to New York my wife and I were walking across a busy downtown intersection when I saw a wad of bills on the ground in front of me. Right in the middle of the pedestrian crossing with people hurrying each way. It must have been just dropped but when I picked it up and looked around nobody obvious in the milling crowd. So I thought I'd keep it (about $65) with the expectation that it would pay for the rest of my planned visits to McSorley's Saloon (I went seven times in total).

Then my wife intervened. She told me it was bad luck to keep found money and we had to give it away. Huh? First time I'd ever heard of that superstition. When I enquired who I was to give it to she noted that there were plenty of street beggars in New York. I pointed out, quite logically I thought, that If I gave the beggars the money they would have the bad luck passed on to them and they looked like they had enough already. So I generously volunteered to end the cycle by keeping the money and carry the burden for them. She wasn't having that and since I wasn't going to give it away I gave her my newly found wealth so that she could dispose of it. But she kept looking for people who she thought needed it or deserve it which I felt went against the whole point of the superstition. If I got it by blind luck without needing or deserving it then, logically, the recipients should be in the same position. So I told her to just give the whole amount to any stranger on the street. However logic doesn't work in situations like this and she played Lady Bountiful for a few days doling it out in bits and pieces. And I had to pay for McSorley's dark ale out of my own pocket.

"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

notorial dissent wrote:Just as a side question, did he actually shut up during sentencing or did he continue to rant?

I am curious though, will that glollop actually go directly to the court, or will it go through a Master first to if there is anything actually functional in it?

He said nothing during the judge's reading of sentencing but had a rant at the end when he found out he was actually being given a jail sentence. That was when he started shouting that he was never going to jail. Good luck with that.

There are no masters at the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Masters don't handle criminal offenses. I'm not familiar with the rules of the court however the Notice of Appeal form says that if an appeal against a conviction involves a question of law alone there is a right to appeal. It's hard to tell from the dog's breakfast that Millar coughed up what's involved but there are clearly issues apart from questions of law.

The Notice also says that if an appeal is based on any grounds other than a question of law then leave to appeal must be granted by the court. This would cover his incessant whining about how mean that nasty judge was too him. As I wrote, they just have to compare his version of what happened when he was taken into custody during a hearing to the transcript to realize that his complaints of mistreatment are more fantasy than fact. However I'm not clear if an appeal, such as this one, which has both questions of law and "other grounds" gets an automatic right of appeal or must be approved. The Notice says;

1(a) If your appeal against conviction involves a question of law alone you have a right of appeal.

So he may not have an automatic right.

"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

Just from a quick overview, I'd say that "dog's breakfast" was more just him whining about about the mean nasty ole judge than anything else. The capitalization stuff isn't really a question of law that I can see, fantasy yes, law no, and other than the stuff he didn't bring up at trial I really don't see much to get traction, and he jibbers too much to really get a coherent claim from.

The fact that you sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that the “Law of Gravity” is unconstitutional and a violation of your sovereign rights, does not absolve you of adherence to it.

Millar was released on bail pending appeal on Friday, March 3rd. The Crown consented to his release on specified conditions. The Court apparently had the same opinion of Millar's Notice of Appeal that I did. The judge actually asked the Crown why it was consenting to bail since the grounds for appeal appeared frivolous. The Crown’s position was that ground #32 related to the dismissal of Millar’s Charter s.11(b) application and might actually involve an arguable question of law. So, out of thirty-six grounds for appeal, Millar managed to come up with exactly one that wasn't entirely frivolous. Not an encouraging number but at least it kept him out of jail! For the time being.

This is Ground 32;

32. A time delay Charter application was dismissed during which the judge, of her own accord, on an issue not raised by the Crown, searched out case law and applied it to her decision, advancing the Crown's case, thereby unfairly assisting the Crown, to my prejudice.

The ramifications were discussed on the front page of my newspaper a few days ago;

In the wake of the game-changing Supreme Court of Canada R. v Jordan ruling on trial delays last July, more than 800 accused criminals have walked — including individuals charged with murder and child sexual offences.

Oddly enough the Supreme Court of British Columbia, an entirely provincial court, has it's judges appointed by the federal government. As the article says the federal government has a backlog of about sixty judges to appoint nationally.

"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

Back in the saddle again! I was at one of Michael's appeal hearings yesterday. Just like old times. Same Crown counsel, same Michael although looking a little different. He's shaved off his moustache. Back in the Supreme Court of British Columbia courthouse in downtown Vancouver.

First an update. At the end of next month it will be a year since Millar was sentenced. During that time the case has bogged down at the British Columbia Court of Appeal. As far as I can see not even close to the actual appeal hearing yet. Today was just a procedural case management hearing regarding him filing an Amended Notice of Appeal and the production of court transcripts. I'll give an overview and then a chronological report of events.

Michael, as the appellant, is required to provide the Court of Appeal transcripts of his court appearances. Given how he spent years fighting the charges in various courts with many, many hearings there are probably a massive amount of potential transcripts. They are expensive and I'm assuming that he's broke. From what I can recall the first set of transcripts from a trial is very expensive because someone has to sit down with headsets and transcribe it all by listening to the tapes or CD's, whatever it was recorded on. After the first set additional sets are much cheaper but still expensive. And Michael is required to provide five sets, on for himself, one for the Crown, and one for each of the appeal judges. He's questioning the necessity of him providing transcripts from all of his hearings.

As far as Millar's Amended Notice of Appeal goes I wrote this about his first Notice of Appeal;

I have a copy of Millar's Notice of Appeal but I'm not going to do a detailed review of it. Millar has carried his hallmark "everything but the kitchen sink" style from the courtroom to his Notice of Appeal with relentless repetition. Even the clerk at the British Columbia Court of Appeal registry who printed the notice out for me commented on the huge number of Grounds For Appeal of Conviction that Millar had listed. I've had enough of relating Millar's gibberish over and over so I'll instead just try and analyze the basic themes. That hopeful bridal poem gives me a handy reference guide to break it down into topics.

Millar has included every last argument he made in court and is trying, yet again, to re-litigate them all. Every one of them. No argument, no matter how many times he lost it at trial or in prior hearings, has been discarded. The bulk of the notice is just padding due to his obsessive repetition, a style he used in court at a cost to me in time wasted while he incessantly rambled on about capitalization and all of his other beloved arguments. They are all back here for an encore.

Well the new one is no better. The first had thirty-six grounds for appeal, the new one has fifty-seven. I haven't had a chance to go through it in detail and I may not, it's a real dog's breakfast of gibberish like this;

2.5 only upon the trial judge's requirement to respond, prosecution led the court and the Appellant to believe that the trial was to take place within a lawful 'Supreme Court of British Columbia" within the lawful "County of Vancouver" within the lawful "Vancouver Westminster Judicial District" (as defined by the British Columbia Legislature relevant Acts - see NOTE 1) the trial appearing to take place in some other undisclosed jurisdiction with prosecution's knowledge and original intent,

Millar has pages of this stuff and, based on my painfully earned experience at his trial, I'm assuming he plans to spend weeks yammering away on each individual point until he's forced to stop. Which will be very quickly because the Court of Appeal, unlike the trial court, keeps a very tight restriction on allowed time. If Michael wants to spend all of that time on the above jurisdiction issue he's free to do so but he won't be allowed extra time for the other fifty-six grounds. If he doesn't like it he can always appeal. No doubt the Supreme Court of Canada would be fascinated by Michael's legal theories.

Anyhow on to the hearing. Millar introduced himself as 'Michael in private status, private capacity". He chanted that magic incantation all through his trial but was still convicted however he still seems to believe it has some magical effect.

He wanted to file a motion but the registry wouldn't accept it because he was too late so he wants to file it today in court. It relates to a January 12th hearing where he was given until January 23rd to file an Amended Notice of Appeal. He apparently made that deadline but he also want to file an application allowing him to minimize the costs of getting transcripts by reducing the transcript requirement but neglected to file it on time. Crown opposes reducing his requirements. The judge pointed out how Millar has a history of not meeting court requirements in allotted time. There were three requirements made by the court at the last case management hearing and Millar only met one of them. Judge wanted to know why. I forgot or I didn't understand. Implied that it was Crown's fault for not reminding him. Anyhow he was ready to file his application to reduce transcription requirements right now if the court would accept it. Crown didn't oppose so judge allowed it. We sat and waited while judge read it.

Millar said that he was at a loss to identify what transcripts were actually needed at appeal. The jurisdiction based grounds for appeal were evidence based rather than testimony so no need for transcripts for those. He doesn't know what transcripts already have been made and are available. The judge said that some of Millar's grounds for appeal needed full transcripts. As examples (he said there may be more) he pointed two out;

3.11 the trial judge denied full cross exam of CRA witness Jason Rauh denying right to full answers and defense.

4. In the alternative it is submitted that the application for reasonable apprehension of bias was dismissed in error, as the judge failed to provide proper assistance to an unrepresented man, obstructed right to full and fair hearing and defense, denied equitable remedies, failed to review key issues of law, and had the appellant arrested in court for no justifiable, lawful reason.

The judge said that these two points required full transcripts for the appeal court judges to review and there may be more. Also Millar was claiming unreasonable delay based on the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Jordan and the appeal judges would require all available material on the trial delay.

I've already explained Jordan a number of times including in this unrelated posting;

Millar said he had a copy of something, I didn't catch whether he meant the whole trial transcript or not. He asked judge why he couldn't just photocopy that. Judge said there may be copyright issues. He said he didn't know but he needed copies. A comment from me here. If Millar pursues number 4 above he's going to have everything, including the numerous voir dire hearings that Millar kept insisting on. A review of a judge's conduct at trial is serious and the appeals court won't accept less than the full transcripts.

Judge suggested to Millar that he think about narrowing the scope of his appeal which might limit what is needed. He said just a suggestion. He said Millar could discuss this with Crown and perhaps they could come to an agreement on transcripts based on what Millar was willing to remove from the Amended Notice of Appeal. This would require an Amended Amended Notice of Appeal but this was allowable. So judge suggested discussing with Crown and coming back to court with whatever the result is. But "Time is marching on" so if Millar is proceeding with the unreasonable delay argument they have to get moving. So the judge said that he expected all of the required transcripts and appeal books at the next hearing. Judge repeated that he wasn't telling Millar to amend his Notice of Appeal, just suggesting.

"If you come back before me without these documents we'll have to discuss where this case is going. Time is limited and we have to go forward. I'll require by the next meeting that you have at least ordered entire trial transcript". Judge implied that this was a minimum and he may require more depending on how the discussion with Crown worked out and what remains in the Notice of Appeal.

Then, just before we adjourned, bail issues. Millar is on bail but it expires February 28, a year from sentencing. Millar must make an application to the court to get it extended. Crown said if Millar could provide a draft of what he wanted in a week Crown could respond by February 16th. Judge said the next hearing would require at least an hour (this one was a half hour) so probably next hearing February 26 or 27. Millar wanted to know if he could make a bail extension application then. Yes. Then we adjourned with parties and court to determine next date.

As a bonus Keith Lawson has a hearing on Friday and Porisky has one mid February. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend either of them. When not boozing Burnaby49 is a family man with responsibilities. The two hearings are on a Thursday and Friday and the wife and I baby-sit our grandson on those days.

"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".